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Session 2.2
Hardholme Season 2 Session 2 8/30/18 Party Members: Carric (Ryan), Root (Casey), Fallynde (Elaine), Buckler (Luther), Aurianya (Cath-AR-ine), Voice from on High and all other characters (Chris). Day 1 * It is early evening when everyone meets. Carric is not much of an early riser these days and spends much of his time drinking and smoking the menga. Carric shares information he reserved from a fellow named Cleve who says he saw Rory riding off on a strider towards the east, ‘unhappy yet beautiful woman strapped to the back on the strider’. He was thinking he was headed towards the underground strider racing tracks, about a 6 hour strider ride. It’s a place Rory has talked about setting up shop and setting roots. * Aurianya, listening intensely ‘That is literally what happens in the latest book I read! Reclaiming the Heart by Hast-e-mo-ha-huff?’ Voice from on High ‘Hastohmuff’. The group looks at each other confused. Aurianya tries again ‘Hast-e- mahoff?? I read the name, I never say it out loud!’ Buckler chimes in ‘Hastohmuff’. Aurianya, “Hasselhoff???” Buckler “… Yes, Hasselhoff, that’s it…” Aurianya, “Well, anyway, just like from the book! Weird!?” * A Voice fills the air announcing ‘Silas has opened up the Prime to the members of the 70th and possibly the 69th, that is still under debates by the Prime. CARRY ON. The group looks to each other perplexed, shrugs, and carries on with preparing for their search and rescue. * The next stop was to the Blue Hyla mystic, Lamlon, to receive Greater Restoration for Carric’s legs and restore him to his rightful height. Upon seeing Carric, Lamlon was overwhelmed with the desire to heal him… for 2000 gold. Carric quickly pays and is restored to his natural height. This is the happiest we’ve seen him in months! While the group was there Fallynde wanted to purchase some Healing potions. She purchased 5 Greater Healing potions and as a token of gratitude, Lamlon threw in 2 Healing potions for free. * Next, Buckler checks in with Rezner, to confer about training the troops for the City Watch. Rezner informed Buckler that Aequitus has taken on patrolling the city with a group of Blue Hyla and expressed concern that this is happening outside of the Silver Flame. One concern is the issue of payment, the contract to pay for patrolling the city is specifically with the Silver Flame. Second, they want to make sure that anyone watching the city will uphold a certain level of honor, and loyalty to the city. They come to the conclusion that all individuals patrolling the city must make an oath to the Silver Flame to ensure they will live by the values required by taking the oath. They also discussed sending their initiates to attend Aurelea’s training classes to prepare them for manning the towers. * Carric suggests investigating Rory’s house, Aurianya was quick to agree seeing as she loves to sneak into places! Fallynde, Buckler and Root are firm in not wanting to take part of anything illegal seeing as Rory’s Arrival Family still live in the same home Rory did. To that, Aurianya smiles big and says ‘Oh, well then I will speak with them directly to see if they have heard anything!!’ She runs into Grapple and Hook before anyone can stop her to remind her that everyone thinks Rory is dead. Anya marches right up to Freena and loudly says, “Hi! I hear no one has seen Rory for a while. What’s up with that??” To this, Freena wails in despair, ‘Aaaaahhh ahh ohhoh AHHHHH’ Aurianya stares flabbergasted… Lars comes up to Freena’s side asking what happened. Aurianya states…. ‘I… I asked about Rory…?’. Lars begins to cry loudly himself. ‘Why would you bring him up??? Why????’, beginning to cry himself, ’AHHHHH AHHH HOO HOO’. Aurianya attempts to comfort both of them to no avail. She then awkwardly buys a climbing axe she has no need for and leaves the store. * Carric stops by the Tipsy Tabaxi to get a Cask of the Simsum wine, he has to keep his buzz going. Aurianya instantly takes a goblet requesting a fill from Carric, he obliges. * The group is finally ready to leave the city, but is suddenly stopped by one of the new arrivals. A goblin by the name of Francis John Archibold (the third…?) steps out to say hello to Buckler and Fallynde. They introduced him to the rest of the group. He exclaims that he lost a few hundred dollars to a Blue Hyla and seem quite distraught over it! He then perks up and asked them to keep an eye out for a gold mine… offering a hundred thousand gold as a reward. They allnquickly agree with a smirk thinking… ‘sure yes… a gold mine. When we see one we will tell you…’ Fallynde does share that if he is looking to win at dice, Rael is really bad at them… so he is likely to win some money from him! * Before parting ways, Aurianya offers him a sip of her Simsum wine, because everyone should try this delicacy! He instantly spits it out in her face in disgust. Root then offers a bit of his food rations in an attempt to comfort Francis from losing his money. Francis turns and runs in terror. * The group is finally ready to set out and just about to make it to the city gates… When another new arrival, Dante a moderately handsome Dark Elf pops in front of them asking where they were headed. Fallynde quickly says, ‘We are going dirt hunting! Right, guys? Not very interesting, nothing to see here! Lets go.’ Carric, in his drunken stupor says, ‘We are going to save my sweet beautiful Prentiss from a terrible man!’ Dante looks interested, ‘Oh, a Rescue eh?? Sounds dangerous and exciting! Do you need any help?? I can tear him apart with my blade like I have done to hundreds of men before!!’ Fallynde immediately cuts in ‘No, no its very easy. She was not taken far and was taken by a very weak man. It will be very quick and painless’. To that he says, ‘Oh… Well, that seems boring.’ Scrunches his face up and turns to walk away. Fallynde lets out a sigh of relief and they finally FINALLY leave town. * They only walk a couple of hours before having to stop for the night. They have traveled a couple of hours to the east of Hardholme, following the cliff side. Their destination is at least a 6 hour (14 hours on foot) strider ride. * Fallynde takes the first watch, Buckler and Anya take second, Root and Carric third. * The first and third watches pass with no disturbances. Wingas show up during the second watch. Buckler crouches to takes aim at catch one when Anya whispers. ‘hey little guy’ reaching her hand out to touch one as they all ‘poof’ away. She looks to Buckler surprised and sad… ‘Sorry…’ The rest of the night goes with no disturbance. Day 2 * The group continue east for another 12 hours following the cliff side. To the south beyond the cliffs, the occasional quakesnake can be seen surfacing high into the sky then plunge violently back into the earth. Fallynde’s eyes narrow each time she gets a glimpse of one, she hates them so much… * Along the trek, Carric gets more and more intoxicated making several members of the group, especially Fallynde, grow concerned about Carric’s being able to hold his own if we have to fight. Concerned about what would happen if we have to fight, especially Fallynde. Even Aurianya, who has been making sure Carric is not drinking alone (out of the kindness of her heart) has a growing concern and attempts to reason with Carric by asking what would happen if ‘we find Prentiss while you is in this state…?” upping Aurianya’s cry count to 3 for this adventure! Aurianya, mortified at making yet another person cry, pours Carric another glass of Simsum wine and runs away. * After the 12th hour of walking, the group starts to keep watch for strider tracks and a cave that would be along the cliff front just out of view from the topside. They plan to have Root lower Aurianya every few hundred feet to look for the cave on the cliff face. As they are about to implement it, Fallynde and Root see a strider running north away from the cliff with a man riding on it. They follow, Aurianya running a few paces in front of the rest to get a little closer view of the manned strider. * Following him takes the group a few hundred yards away from cliff in the opposite direction of where the cave would be. The group takes a minute to vote between going back to where they think the cave is or continuing on to follow the tracks of the strider. Anya and Fallynde vote to turn around and attempt to find the cave, the rest vote to keep going. They continue to follow the tracks for several hours until they see a Daemonwhite tree ahead, they consider turning back again only briefly not wanting to risk detection from any Batdusas. Buckler points out that if they turn back, hours of work would lost, ‘We need to keep going’. The group chances it. As they pass by the hive they are spotted by a group of 5 seekers Batdusas. And the battle begins Initiative rolls: Carric - 22, Buckler - 16, Root - 12, Anya - 10, Fallynde – 9, Batdusa’s (5) – 1 * Carric starts the battle by casting Shatter with a loud sharp clap all Batdusa’s are affected by his spell with one Batdusa writhing in pain more than the remaining four. In the stillness after the shattering noise, the group exchange a look of fear as they turn together to see the hive of about 40 angry Batdusa’s all charging at them from about 90 feet away. The terrified group now rushed to take down what they have in front of them before they are swarmed with the whole lot. * Buckler, Fallynde and Root run closer to the Batdusa while Anya takes a few steps towards the Batdusas but hangs back a few yards behind the others. Carric does not budge an inch. * Buckler begins the attack and aims for the closest Batdusa to him that did wasn’t fully affected by Shatter. He misses his first attack and only grazes with his blade on the second. * Root attacks a second one that also was only partially effected by shatter. He too misses his first attack however kills his Batdusa with a single blow. * Aurianya looks at her tiny dagger and look to the others wielding their great weapons and feels a little sheepish… She then remembers she has discovered some new tricks recently! She successfully casts sleep on the Batdusa bringing up the rear. * Fallynde activates rage taking down another one with two mighty blows. * The two remaining Batdusa’s attack Root, One looks to be casting something, Buckler, Fallynde and Root feel a cementing fear creeping up inside of them threatening to paralyze them. Luckily, they were all able to overcome the urge to freeze and we able to continue fighting. The second Batdusa attempts to bite Root and misses. * The swarm of Batdusas are now 30 feet closer to the group… * Carric casts blind unsuccessfully, however quickly inspires Buckler with an encouraging tune despite his misfortune. * Buckler kills one of the two still awake and misses the other one. * Root casts Natures Wrath to grapple one with vines and fails. Root then hits the last one almost killing it. * Anya casts fog cloud about 45 feet away from the group to block their view from Swarm of Batdusas heading for them. * This gave them enough time for Fallynde to obliterate the final Batdusa with two strikes while thinking to herself, “It is good that Aequitus isn’t here because he wouldn’t like that he couldn’t get this one’s head…” Letting out a chuckle. * The group quickly decides to head north to get out of the way of the Batdusa swarm before they have a chance to see they changed direction. The swarm did not follow, and they were able to continue tracking the strider. * With a moment to breath, Root laid his hands on Carric’s head to sober him up some. Carric thanked the group and apologized for his drunkenness almost getting them killed. * Walking an hour, the group came upon a stationary strider and a person digging in the ground. Aurianya attempts to sneak up on him but is not sneaky enough. The man gets spooked and runs toward his strider stumbling to climb into the saddle. Aurianya jumps into her jungle cat speeds getting 30 feet from him before he manages to get into the saddle. Anya attempt to mage hands his reins away from him and is unsuccessful. She then makes a feeble attempt to send a message to him about ‘being lost...’ You can guess the outcome... * Carric casts Tasha’s Hideous Laughter and person bowls over cackling wildly, but manages to stay on the strider. Buckler pulls Fallynde’s glaive out of her back sheath and lunges at the strider legs to trip it, hoping to cause minimal injury. He takes one leg completely off and the strider skids and rolls to a stop. * The group gathers around an unconscious Rory. Root pulls out a rope and ties his legs. They search his person to find mushrooms… and more mushroom. Nothing else but mushroom. A Milky blue mushroom with deep red spots and a deep bell cap. (Anya was sad there was no coin on him… but pretty mushroom) * The strider is wailing in pain and has to be put down. Buckler takes the responsibility of the grim task. Fallynde sits quietly aside, Aurianya bows her head in silence and Root prays while Carric plays a eulogy. * Root carries Rory as they head back to the cliff. They make it to cliff just in time to make camp. Fallynde takes first watch, Root takes second watch, and Buckler takes third watch. Carric and Anya are left out of the watch rotation because of previous biases against Rory (Anya may have spent a great deal of time plotting to steal Rory’s fortune… no big deal) * Buckler gets a wingas chance during his turn was but was unsuccessful. Day 3 * Carric takes all waking moments to stare down the wakeless Rory. Rory eventually stirs in late morning. Fallynde tells him how worried his family is for him; how could he worry his family so?? Rory is instantly pissed and saying he is living off the land and that is of no concern to his family and to unhand him. At this point he is not listening to anything anyone is saying. He then gets quiet and asks, ‘Where my strider? Swamp Princess? Where is she??? Swamp Princess!!! SWAMP PRINCESS!!!’ Yelling over and over again until Carric breaks through the surrounding group and slaps Rory with all his might. Rory Spits back on Carric and then continuing to spit on everyone and everything in his path. He stops for a moment and Fallynda with Buckler attempt to reason with him. He whispers, ‘Come here, I need to tell you something.’ to Root. Root approaches him and spits in his face. Aurianya’s attempt to empathize with him, he seems to be receptive and whispers to her to, ‘Come here.’ Anya refuses saying she doesn’t want to get spit on. Rory say, ‘No, no no, I won’t, I promise’. Anya inches closer and he SPITS ON HER. * Buckler finally calls for everyone to back up and casts Zone of Truth, be begins to ask a series of questions. He is quickly able to get Rory to admit that Prentiss is with him, saying, ‘Sorry Carric, your princess is in another castle!’ *cackle* and admits he left during the battle months ago with her. He was asked if she wanted to go with him. He replied, ‘she doesn’t know what is good for her’. Fallynde asks if he did anything to her that she didn’t want him to do… He said ‘No, no no no.’ Aurianya snaps, ‘Aside from taking her.’ * Rory offers up without any prompting ‘Ya know, Carric is a pretty good musician.’ Carric swears at him and mutters something about Prentiss. * We get the location of his cave. In return, Rory asks who it was that killed Swamp Princess. Buckler has to admit that it was him, saying that he didn’t want it to come to that. He had no choice. Buckler then asked what Rory was doing out there. Rory replied, ‘Mushroom are tasty…’ and then began sobbing Swamp Princesses name and calling Buckler a monster. Root, moving closer to Rory in an attempt to calm him down, says ‘if you spit on me I’m going to knock you out’. Rory spits on him and Root conks him on the head. Root straps Rory on his back and the group sets out to find the cave in the direction Rory pointed to. * Once at the spot, Anya climbs over the ledge and quickly finds the cave with a relieved Prentiss inside. She is weak and malnourished from not being allowed to leave the cave and having a diet of mostly mushroom. Rory was not as good of a survivalist as he fancied himself. * The group help Prentiss out of the cave and Carric drops his guitar for the first time ever. He and Prentiss slow-mo run to each other. Prentiss stops in the middle of it to note his height with a smile. They then continue the slow-mo embrace ending with a kiss. * In Carric’s arms, Carric asks if Rory hurt her. Prentiss shook her head no and said, ‘Rory told me he loved me every 3 mins, but not he didn’t do anything to me.’ She did mention that she thought he had a weird thing going on with his Strider… and he kept obsessing about her mating season and would carry on about Swamp Princess all the time. Her and Carric exchange ‘I love you’s’ and start to make out, hard. Oh… clothes are coming off... Carric breathlessly asks for some privacy… Everyone obliges. Fallynde and Root take sentinel in opposite directions to ensure their privacy is also safe. * Aurianya and Buckler go back into the cave and find a massive gold ore in the wall. They call Fallynde down who confirms it is in fact a vein. They have just found a goldmine… huh… That Rory has been sitting on… for months… * The group spends the day chipping out some gold. It was discussed who would be told first, Francis or the counsel. It was decided to tell the counsel first and still tell Francis. It is more important for the city to have the mine. Root also decided that he will volunteer to work at the mines in the future to ensure fair treatment of the eventual workers there. * The group sleep in the cave for the night, providing no need for assigning watches. Day 4 * They begin the full day walk back to Hardholme. As the group enters the gates of Hardholme. A Voice from on High says ‘Not a single point of damage was taken yet you all almost died. Hah, Interesting’. They look to each other with a nervous laugh before continuing. * Their first stop is to bring Rory to Constable, Rael answers the door as Rael does, half naked. Carric and the constable talk, share the mange, and Prentiss gives her witness statement. * Rory gets locked up and Carric moons Rory through the bars. Rory spits on Carric’s bare ass. * Root makes a figurine of Swamp Princess as an apology to Rory. Rory accepts the figurine and lovingly kiss his new tiny Swamp Princess. * Prentiss, seeing the mushrooms on the evidence table mentions that these mushrooms are particularly loved by the Striders. * The group makes it to Hook and Grapple. Lars is especially grateful for Fallynde’s presence and awkwardly stares/smiles at her while she gives them the news, ‘I have good news and bad news. The good news is Rory is still alive! The bad news is that he is currently in jail for kidnapping.’ Lars compliments her cloak and continues to awkwardly stare/smile at her … Buckler, seeing this and steps to Lars, they exchange an aggressively long handshake. * The final stop is to the Ral Raw – Carric gets ‘Cloak of Dramatic Entrance’, Buckler receives ‘Elvan Knife’, Root ‘Rabbit statue of creation’, he gets a second item ‘The place bow’, Anya gets ‘Rose tinted spectacles’, and Fallynde receives ‘Survival spice’.